Kurds partially recapture key Mosul Dam

Published 7:30 pm, Sunday, August 17, 2014

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter patrols near the Mosul Dam. Iraq's largest dam, which supplies power and water to much of the country, was captured by Islamic State fighters this month.

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter patrols near the Mosul Dam. Iraq's largest dam, which supplies power and water to much of the country, was captured by Islamic State fighters this month.

Photo: Khalid Mohammed, Associated Press

Kurds partially recapture key Mosul Dam

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Irbil, Iraq --

Aided by U.S. and Iraqi air strikes, Kurdish forces Sunday wrested back part of Iraq's largest dam from Islamic militants who had captured it less than two weeks ago, security officials said.

The U.S. began targeting fighters from the Islamic State with air strikes Aug. 8, allowing Kurdish forces to fend off an advance on their regional capital of Irbil and to help tens of thousands of members of religious minorities escape the extremists' onslaught.

Recapturing the entire Mosul Dam and the territory surrounding its reservoir would be a significant victory against the Islamic State group, which has seized swaths of northern and western Iraq and northeastern Syria. The dam on the Tigris River supplies electricity and water to a large part of the country.

The Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, launched the operation early Sunday to retake the dam, said Gen. Tawfik Desty, a Kurdish commander, after a day of U.S. and Iraqi air strikes pushed back Islamic State fighters.

Latest news videos

"The west is in control of peshmerga. But there are some battles taking place in the (east) right now," said Halgurd Hekmat, peshmerga spokesman.

The U.S. military conducted 16 air strikes Sunday, damaging or destroying 10 armed vehicles, seven Humvees, two armored personnel carriers and one checkpoint, according to a statement by the Central Command. On Saturday, it carried out nine air strikes near the dam.

Troubled relations between the Kurds and the central government in Baghdad have hindered the supply of arms to the force, leaving them overstretched and outgunned as the Islamic State group advanced.

Earlier this month, the militants swooped into Kurdish-held territory, seizing a border crossing and the Mosul Dam. They also took control of villages around a northern mountain chain dominated by the Yazidis - adherents of an ancient faith seen as heretical by the militants.

The militants also took over villages near Irbil inhabited by Christians, and two Kurdish towns, Makhmour and Gweir.

Those seizures led to the flight of tens of thousands of Yazidis, Christians and Kurds into safer, Kurdish-held areas.

The advance by the Islamic State was halted by U.S. air strikes, the first American military involvement in Iraq since its troops pulled out in 2011. U.S. officials also said they would begin supplying weapons to Kurdish forces.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.